New coffee shop opens in downtown Dayton

A new coffee shop is opening in downtown Dayton, bringing another amenity to the area surrounding Tech Town.

Business owner and barista Nathan Wirrig had a soft launch today for his coffee shop “La Gota” with plans to grow at its 804 E. Monument Ave. home into a a full coffee bar.

He said while coffee can be a rushed morning ritual grabbed from a drive through and drank in the car, he’d like his coffee shop to instead be a place where people slow down and take time to learn about how the coffee is made and where it came from.

La Gota is working with Fairborn-based Reza’s Roast, which roasts coffee directly sourced from farmers in Nicaragua through Gold Mountain Coffee Growers. He’d like his shop to spark conversation where coffee comes from and how its made.

The coffee shop will serve the 804 Building, which is under development but eventually will have more offices and multiple event spaces to accompany the built out first floor.

For now its set up as a kiosk with some seating and a few coffee plants growing in the window but the next phase is to build out a full coffee bar over the next few months and add baked goods to the offerings.

Wirrig, who lives in Yellow Springs, said he started to love coffee as a kid as something that brings people in to spend time together. He attended the Costa Rican Coffee Academy and had looked at opening as a coffee kiosk in Yellow Springs but switched plans after learning that the 804 Building was looking for a coffee shop and viewing the space.

The coffee shop is a new amenity at the 804 Building, which sold in October to a group of investors who want to bring it back to life.

Jeffrey Mohlman, one of the partners, said he wants the building to help bring the neighborhood back to life. For now, the 804 Building sits between aging abandoned buildings and newly built Tech Town facilities.

So far, the alley next to the building has been cleared — including the removal of an abandoned semi-trailer that was split in half — and the building will be under development for several years. It now has some event space, storage and several built out offices. He said the goal is for the building to help bring in amenities to the downtown area like the coffee shop or urban storage.

“It can’t be done by one person. It has to be a collective effort,” he said.